This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

Wynne government has no new money or ideas for social housing

Kathleen Wynne can't be the social justice premier if she doesn't take some action on affordable housing.

TCHC buildings in Toronto need about $900 million for repairs but the provincial and federal governments have offered no new money to pay for them. (Tim Alamenciak / Toronto Star File Photo)

By Cheri DiNovo

Thu., Aug. 21, 2014

Earlier this year, Toronto councillors visited Queen’s Park as part of the city’s Close the Housing Gap campaign. They asked the provincial government to match Toronto’s commitment to social housing with $864 million over 10 years to pay for desperately needed capital repairs to Toronto Community Housing Corp. properties.

Instead, last week the Liberal government and the federal Conservatives convened the media to solicit praise for not cutting the existing Investment in Affordable Housing fund, while offering not a single dime toward TCHC repairs.

It’s a crisis. The TCHC capital repair backlog grew from roughly $500 million to $900 million in just the last five years. A city staff report estimates that $2.6 billion will be needed over the next 10 years just to keep the aging buildings minimally habitable.

How could Kathleen Wynne, the “social justice” premier, ignore a plea so urgent that even Mayor voted to support this expenditure?

Unfortunately, we have seen this movie before. In 1993, Canadian voters thought they had rejected Tory austerity by electing a new Liberal government and the wonderful promises listed in its Red Book.

Article Continued Below

And then . . . surprise! The Chrétien government promptly broke its promise to create a universal child-care system, and instead kept a promise the Tories made — to eliminate the deficit ahead of schedule with deep cuts.

One of finance minister Paul Martin’s first actions was to cut federal funding for social housing.

A few years later, Ontario premier Mike Harris did the same thing at the provincial level, downloading social housing to the municipalities. This was followed by even more cuts to municipalities and downloaded costs.

The result of this tag-team takedown of Toronto was a permanent crisis in social housing that we still haven’t recovered from.

And looking ahead, it is clear that the provincial government does not plan to restore funding for social housing any time soon. In fact, it looks like things are about to get worse.

According to the budget, Municipal Affairs and Housing is among the ministries that face average cuts of 6 per cent per year, every year, for the next three years.

Meanwhile, the government is about to give away hundreds of millions a year by letting corporations claim a refund on the HST paid on things like drinks and box seats at the Rogers Centre.

So the government has rejected new money for social housing. And even worse, the government has so far rejected new ideas as well.

This year, for the fifth time in as many years, I tabled a bill that would give municipalities the ability to create inclusionary zoning bylaws. Such bylaws would allow municipalities to follow the lead of cities like New York and Boston and mandate that a certain proportion of new housing be affordable.

Research by the Wellesley Institute and the Furman Centre have shown that such bylaws could create thousands of affordable housing units a year in Ontario, without significant impact on the production of market housing.

And it wouldn’t cost taxpayers a dime.

Wynne voted to support my bill when it was debated in 2012. She’s now premier. Why hasn’t she acted?

Here’s another idea. We can close the loophole that creates two classes of tenants in Ontario, only one of which is protected from unexpected and unaffordable rent increases.

Many tenants in Toronto, especially those living in newer condo communities, have been shocked to learn that they are not entitled to the same rent protections that tenants in older buildings have.

As a result, tenants can receive sudden double-digit rent increases, far above the rent increase guidelines set by the Landlord and Tenant Board. All perfectly legal.

And if you are a tenant who “causes trouble” by demanding repairs or pointing out poor safety standards, this loophole offers bad landlords a handy tool to kick you out through “economic eviction.”

Last year, my colleague Cindy Forster introduced a bill to close this loophole and end two-tier tenant rights. This is another good idea the government should support.

With community housing properties falling apart and federal mortgage subsidies soon running out, and with thousands of low-income tenants facing an uncertain future and unaffordable rents, such zero-cost policy changes are literally the least the provincial government can do.

We can’t afford any more delays or self-congratulatory press conferences celebrating the government’s lack of progress on affordable housing. The government should listen to the people of Ontario, who made it clear that they do not want more austerity and cuts.

If Kathleen Wynne truly wishes to be a “social justice” premier, her government must act to support affordable housing now.

Cheri DiNovo is the MPP for Parkdale-High Park and the NDP critic for GTA Issues.

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com